Books for my baby girl!

Today was my last day of work for the school year. Yay summer vacation!  It was a really good week.  I spent most of the week wrapping things up for while I am gone on maternity leave in the fall and training people who will take on some of my responsibilities.  We still have not gotten a court date, but we did receive permission to take Anjali out of state and foster her in India as we ride out the process.  I will probably give it one more week and then start to make plans to get Anjali.  I do hope we have a court date by then, but regardless I'm going to go get her.  On Tuesday, Sarah, my amazing boss, threw me a book shower!  Everyone who came to the shower brought one of their favorite children's books for Anjali.  The collection of books Anjali got was amazing with sweet messages from the folks I work with.  The people I work with are really wonderful.   It was truly one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.  We all had cake on Anjali's behalf and I got to show off all the amazing books that everyone brought.

I have started to read the books.  It is so refreshing to read children's books and exciting to imagine the day in the not too distant future when I will get to read them with my sweet baby girl.  I know she will love them and it will be such a wonderful bonding experience with her as I tell her about the person who gave her each book and read the message from them.  If you know someone who is adopting and want to do something nice for them, I would recommend this.  It is really fun for everyone I think.  

Look at all these amazing books we got!

One of the first books we purchased for Anjali was  Ganesha's Sweet Tooth by Sanjay Patel.  Patel is an animator for Pixar and the book is beautifully illustrated.  I love colorfully designed images of hindu deities.  Last week, I found a collection of prints of hindu deities, called The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities by Patel that is lovely.   The book contains two sided prints of hindu deities with an explanation about each one on the back. I hope to frame some of the posters to put up in Anjali's room.  His style is described as cute meets modern.  There is a nice interview by Patel on the SF Chronicle or check out his website gheehappy.com for more info about this fantastic artist.

Images from The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities